Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/147



HUMAN LIBERTY. 141

inwardly in man and in harmony with his natural incUna- tions, since it flows from the very Creator of his mind and will, by whom all things are moved in conformity with their nature. As the Angehc Doctor points out, it is because divine grace comes from the Author of nature, that it is so admirably adapted to be the safeguard of all natures, and to maintain the character, efficiency, and operations of each.

What has been said of the liberty of individuals is no less applicable to them when considered as bound to- gether in civil society. For, what reason and the natural law do for individuals, that human law, promulgated for their good, does for the citizens of States. Of the laws enacted by men, some are concerned with what is good or bad by its very nature; and they command men to follow after what is right and to shun what is wrong, adding at the same time a suitable sanction. But such laws by no means derive their origin from civil society; because just as civil society did not create human nature, so neither can it be said to be the author of the good which befits human nature, or of the evil which is contrary to it. Laws come before men live together in society, and have their origin in the natural, and consequently in the eternal, law. The precepts, therefore, of the natural law, con- tained bodily in the laws of men, have not merely the force of human law, but they possess that higher and more august sanction which belongs to the law of nature and the eternal law. And within the sphere of this kind of laws, the duty of the ci\'il legislator is, mainly, to keep the community in obedience by the adoption of a common discipline and by putting restraint upon refractory and viciously inclined men, so that, deterred from evil, they may turn to what is good, or at any rate may avoid caus- ing trouble and disturbance to the State. Now there are other enactments of the civil authority, which do not follow directly, but somewhat remotety, from the natural law, and decide many points which the law of nature